The Mexican Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale Explores the Ecological Potential of Ancestral Agricultural Systems

Titled "Chinampa Veneta", the Mexican exhibition for the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia seeks to promote reflection on how we inhabit, cultivate, and design the world we share. In the face of the global ecological crisis, the project draws attention to chinampas, an ancient Mesoamerican agricultural system with more than four thousand years of history. This ancestral knowledge, interweaving landscape, infrastructure, and technique, is reimagined in the context of the Biennale, activating a living environment within the city of Venice. The Mexican Pavilion consists of two "enactments," one located in the Arsenale and the other built on water.

The Mexican Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale Explores the Ecological Potential of Ancestral Agricultural Systems - Image 2 of 26The Mexican Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale Explores the Ecological Potential of Ancestral Agricultural Systems - Image 3 of 26The Mexican Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale Explores the Ecological Potential of Ancestral Agricultural Systems - Image 4 of 26The Mexican Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale Explores the Ecological Potential of Ancestral Agricultural Systems - Image 5 of 26The Mexican Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale Explores the Ecological Potential of Ancestral Agricultural Systems - More Images+ 21

Chinampas are still used today in Xochimilco, a historic lake ecosystem south of Mexico City, where they support the cultivation of flowers, vegetables, and other foods. Built in shallow lakes from rectangular blocks of sediment, mud, and vegetation, chinampas form geometric patterns that create channels and multiply lake shorelines, offering ecological niches for biodiversity. As an ancestral system, each element plays a vital role in promoting life: capturing carbon, purifying water, producing food, and generating oxygen. According to the exhibition curators, chinampas reflect a worldview in which humans are integral to natural life cycles, a cycle they argue was disrupted by modernity's drive for systemic control.

The Mexican Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale Explores the Ecological Potential of Ancestral Agricultural Systems - Image 22 of 26
Chinampa Veneta. Mexican pavilion at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale, 2025. Image © Matteo Losurdo
The Mexican Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale Explores the Ecological Potential of Ancestral Agricultural Systems - Image 7 of 26
Chinampa Veneta. Mexican pavilion at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale, 2025. Image © Ricardo de la Concha

Chinampa Veneta proposes a future-oriented path inspired by this ancestral agricultural system. The curators present it as an invitation to expand architectural design into a symbiotic process, co-designed with ecosystems, the natural world, and collectively with communities. The exhibition emphasizes that soil health is directly linked to societal well-being. The curatorial team describes their approach as "enactments," incorporating the concept of natural processes into the exhibition through two projects that recreate the chinampa system. Both parts of the exhibition also establish strong connections to the Venetian context, adding a contemporary interpretation to the traditional system. 


Related Article

Meet the Full List of the 65 National Pavilions at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale

The first enactment is located inside the Arsenale and showcases chinampas at various stages of development, beginning with the regeneration of a chinampa from a chapin, a small cube of nutrient-rich mud that holds a seed. At the center lies a living chinampa, distinct from its Mexican counterparts, planted with an agroforestry system native to the Veneto region, la vite maritata, in which vines grow intertwined with trees. This system coexists with a traditional Mesoamerican polyculture known as milpa.

The Mexican Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale Explores the Ecological Potential of Ancestral Agricultural Systems - Image 20 of 26
Chinampa Veneta. Mexican pavilion at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale, 2025. Image © Matteo Losurdo
The Mexican Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale Explores the Ecological Potential of Ancestral Agricultural Systems - Image 14 of 26
Collage of the Chinampa Veneta, 2025, Collage over an image of Teatro del Mondo from Aldo Rossi. Image © Chinampa Veneta

The second enactment floats in the Venetian Lagoon, evoking Aldo Rossi's Teatro del Mondo, which conceived the theater as a fulcrum between architecture and imagination, capable of building bridges between worlds. For the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale, the theater becomes the Chinampa del Mondo, facing the city's built environment. Noting that both Xochimilco and Venice were designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1987, the curators aim to establish a new connection between these two lake cities through their shared water histories, framing their political struggles for clean water and land as part of a new proposed narrative.

The Mexican Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale Explores the Ecological Potential of Ancestral Agricultural Systems - Image 15 of 26
Gran Tenochtitlan in 1519, Luis Covarrubias, Oil on canvas, 1964, Museo Nacional de Antropología and Aerial view of the Venetian lagoon, digital image, 365_visuals/Shutterstock.com. Image © Chinampa Veneta

The opening of the Mexican pavilion took place on May 8, beginning with a conversation between farmers from Xochimilco and Venice who will share their experiences regarding land, cultivation practices, and regenerative agriculture. The project was selected to represent Mexico at the Biennale by the Ministry of Culture and the National Institute of Fine Arts and Literature. The commissioner for this edition is José María Bilbao Rodríguez. Colectivo Chinampa Veneta comprises Estudio Ignacio Urquiza y Ana Paula de Alba, Estudio María Marín de Buen, ILWT, Locus, Lucio Usobiaga Hegewisch & Nathalia Muguet, and Pedro&Juana.

The Mexican Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale Explores the Ecological Potential of Ancestral Agricultural Systems - Image 21 of 26
Chinampa Veneta. Mexican pavilion at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale, 2025. Image © Matteo Losurdo

This edition of the Venice Architecture Biennale promised to be one of the largest in its history, engaging more of Venice's city center than ever before. In addition to the international exhibition, which centers on the curatorial theme "Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective", the event includes participation from 65 nations, four of them (Azerbaijan, Oman, Qatar, and Togo) joining for the first time. Several national pavilions also explore themes of ancestral knowledge and collective memory, including Peru's Pavilion honoring Uros and Aymara construction techniques, Lithuania's exploration of collective identity and urban nature, and Lebanon's examination of ecocide and environmental healing.

We invite you to check out ArchDaily's comprehensive coverage of the 2025 Venice Biennale.

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on May 06, 2025, and updated on July 21, 2025, to include new photographs of the space.

Image gallery

See allShow less
About this author
Cite: Antonia Piñeiro. "The Mexican Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale Explores the Ecological Potential of Ancestral Agricultural Systems" 21 Jul 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/1029783/the-mexican-pavilion-at-the-venice-architecture-biennale-explores-the-ecological-potential-of-ancestral-agricultural-systems> ISSN 0719-8884

You've started following your first account!

Did you know?

You'll now receive updates based on what you follow! Personalize your stream and start following your favorite authors, offices and users.